Talk To Me
by Moogle Princess
Summary: "What do you think would happen if you tied a piece of buttered bread, butter side up, to the back of a cat?" These and other fascinating questions are posed to Vincent by Yuffie in the middle of the night. Why wouldn't he demand that she stop calling his phone? Companion (of a sort) to Do You Want To Talk About It. Now with actual dialogue!
1. Chapter 1

Re-uploaded with the dialogue that went missing from this chapter.

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Part One

Vincent was not sure what could have possibly prompted him to call Cloud that day with a message for Yuffie. He knew Yuffie. Over the course of their fight against Sephiroth and Jenova, they were often paired together as traveling companions. Phrasing the message that way and passing it on through another member of their group was the wrong way to go about it. When he thought back on it, the whole thing was insulting.

After the fight against Bahamut Sin and Sephiroth, Vincent had returned to the Sleeping Forest. He was not sure what drew him to the place, but he found the silence soothing. Once the truth had come out about their part in what was being called the Jenova War, his home in Nibelheim had been overrun by tourists and reporters. He had slipped off in the night to the one place on the planet that was nearly impossible to reach. He had fixed up one of the houses for his own use and traded for supplies with Bone Village.

The archaeologists were not surprised to see him return after his latest venture. They greeted him and passed on congratulations on his victory in Edge, but most were smart enough to leave it at that. Vincent had overheard one of them saying they all felt safer with a hero living nearby and no one in the village was going to jeopardize that if they could help it.

Vincent stopped to purchase supplies from the young woman who ran the shop in town. As he was counting out the necessary gil, his phone began to play the most awful music. The tune was loud and in another language. Vincent assumed it was Wutaian, but he could not be sure. Bewildered, he fumbled for the device and quickly picked up the call.

"Who is this?"

He knew as soon as he heard her laughter that Yuffie was on his phone, "Nice to talk to you, too, Vince! Geez... what crawled up your butt and died?"

"Yuffie..."

"The one and only." There was a pause on the other end and some loud rustling before she returned, "Sorry, I'm hanging upside down from a tree branch and I don't wanna drop you."

Vincent did not even bother to reply. Yuffie had a way of filling the silence without any help from anyone. True to form, she kept talking, "I just wanted to make sure the ringtone I picked out for myself worked. Did it?"

Picking up his supplies, and ignoring the amused smile on the shopkeeper's face, Vincent replied, "The horrible song that played on my phone?"

"Horrible!?" Yuffie cried. He could almost see the indignant expression on her face, "That's a great song! Way better than the default ringtone. Besides, this way you'll always know it's me."

"How do I change it back."

"Funny!" Yuffie replied with a giggle, "Anyway, I gotta run. This hanging upside down thing is not working out like I had planned. I'll catch you later!"

The phone clicked into silence and Vincent sighed in relief. He went about his day as he often had and thought nothing more of his conversation with Yuffie. It was several hours later, well into the night, that he thought of the young woman again. His phone began blaring the song Yuffie had chosen for herself, waking him out of one of his rare moments of sleep. He wondered briefly, as he flipped the phone open to take the call, if she had chosen the song because she knew he would always answer just so the music would stop.

"So... I was thinking..."

She sounded a little breathless, as if she had been running only moments before, "Yuffie?"

"Have you... ever... dropped a piece of buttered bread?"

Or perhaps she was still running. He could not tell, "I am sure I have."

"It landed... butter... side... down... right?"

He heard what sounded like a cry of pain in the background, too deep to be Yuffie's, "What are you-"

"Right?"

Vincent refused to dignify the question with an answer. He honestly could not remember if he had ever dropped a piece of buttered bread, let alone what side it landed on. She seemed to take his silence as an affirmative answer and continued on.

"Cats... always land on their... feet."

Another pained cry, closer and louder this time, sounded in the background. Vincent frowned, unsure of what he should be doing. He heard Yuffie grunt in a way that suggested that she was grabbing her weapon out of the air. She stopped and seemed to be trying to catch her breath. There were no further sounds of fighting on her end of the call.

"What do you think would happen if you tied a piece of buttered bread, butter side up, to the back of a cat?"

Vincent sat in stunned silence for a moment, unsure of what was really happening wherever Yuffie was, "This is a ridiculous conversation."

"Yeah, I know." Yuffie replied, her voice sounding more normal, "The question was just bugging me. Makes you think doesn't it?"

Before he could reply, she hung up the call.

It was hardly the last time he received such a phone call from Yuffie. It was always the middle of the night and nearly always ridiculous. Normally this was not a problem as he required very little sleep, but her babbling disturbed the silence he so enjoyed.

He had called Cloud, hoping to speak with the man on the subject. He was not sure how to approach Yuffie to get her to stop harassing him. He had hoped that Cloud would know why she was bombarding him with calls on an almost nightly basis. When the phone rang through to Cloud's voicemail, Vincent spoke without thinking it through.

"This is my phone. Tell Yuffie she has no right to call this number."

Vincent felt guilty almost immediately after hanging up. He intended to tell Cloud to forget the message when he returned the call, but Cloud never called back. Neither did Yuffie.

At first, he was relieved. The calls had been pointless and annoying. As the days passed, however, the silence that had once been comforting began to wear on him. For the first time since awakening, Vincent was lonely.

Vincent decided a trip to Edge was in order. Cloud was living in Tifa's bar when he was not making deliveries and Tifa had extended an open invitation for everyone to stay with them when they were nearby. The two of them would help him to feel better.

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So let's try this again... with dialogue this time! A great big thank you to SirenMist for letting me know that the dialogue failed in the upload.

For some reason, that line from Advent Children really stuck with me. In the game, Vincent says he never thought he was cold but shortly after he demands that Yuffie stop calling his phone. This is what I imagine that she would call him about. I consider this to be in the world of Do You Want To Talk About It, set before that story, but after Advent Children. It seems like a good start to the interactions between the characters in that story. There will be a couple of small throw backs if you're really paying attention, but nothing world changing I'm afraid.

There's really no excuse for the lack of updates on the above mentioned story. All I can say is that another story has hijacked my brain and eight chapters and more than 13,000 words later, I think I will be allowed to have it back. Once I'm satisfied with that other story and figure out what I want to call it, I'll start posting it as well. Hopefully I can start work on DYWTTAI again at that point. Until then, hopefully this will tide you guys over. The next part will be up soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Part Two

It was mid-afternoon when Vincent reached Seventh Heaven. Tifa was speaking with Reeve at the bar while she mixed drinks for other customers. When the bell rang above the door, she looked up. Her expression grew frosty and her lips pursed in a way that showed her displeasure without question. While he knew he had nothing to fear in the martial artist, he felt a tingle of unease go down his spine. He moved to take a seat near Reeve when she took the drinks to a nearby booth.

Reeve was chuckling into his glass when Vincent joined him, "You are in the dog house, my friend."

"I noticed."

"For someone who has lived as long as you have, you sure haven't learned how to avoid putting your foot in it."

Vincent frowned, "I do not understand-"

Reeve's phone blared to life, playing a song not unlike the one Yuffie had assigned to herself on his phone. Reeve held up a hand to interrupt Vincent and flipped open his phone, "Yes Yuffie?"

Vincent's keen ears picked up Yuffie's voice on the speaker, "You remember fighting an Adamantaimai that one time with me as Cait Sith?"

Reeve leaned back in his chair, smiling, "Of course."

"I got to thinking-"

There was a crash and an explosion loud enough that Tifa could hear it. She hurried back to the bar and clenched her fists together nervously. Reeve was no longer smiling, "Yuffie?"

"Like I said… I was… thinking…" Reeve and Tifa shared a look that Vincent did not understand, "If you broke… the… shell… of an… Adamantaimai... during battle-"

Another explosion sounded, but fainter, as if it were farther away from Yuffie. Tifa closed her eyes and looked like she was trying not to cry. Reeve's fingers drummed nervously against the bar. Finally, Yuffie's voice returned, but it was so soft that Vincent could no longer make out the words.

After a moment, Reeve responded, "Naked, I would think. They could find other shelter, but it would be unlikely to be as form fitting as a shell."

There were a few moments of quiet whispering before Reeve spoke again, "Certainly. Of course. I'll have Tifa make up a room for you. Right. Goodbye."

Tifa looked at Reeve expectantly, "Naked?"

"She was wondering if you broke the shell off of an Adamantaimai during battle, would it be homeless or naked?"

"Ooh... that's a good one." Tifa chuckled, "You would choose naked."

Reeve wiggled his eyebrows, "Naturally."

Vincent was baffled, "Why do you allow her to call you for such pointless conversation?"

Tifa and Reeve turned matching looks of surprise on him. Tifa put her hands on her hips and huffed, "Good grief, Vincent, how can you be so cold!?"

Blinking in bewilderment, Vincent felt his mouth open and close, but no sound would come out. Reeve put a hand on Tifa's arm, "I don't think he knows... Vincent, Yuffie has agreed to work for the WRO. She's been training my intelligence agents. Training ended some time back and now she's spending time in the field with each of them. Lately, the agents have been in... dangerous situations. Yuffie calls one of us to help her keep a clear head when she gets into tight spots. It's 'part of her process.'"

"She didn't tell you?" Tifa asked.

"No." Vincent murmured. He remembered how breathless she sometimes seemed when she called.

"Well, that explains your message to Cloud." Tifa replied, "I can't imagine that you would leave her in danger like that if she needed your help."

Reeve nodded, "She's coming back tonight. You should talk to her, Vincent. Your message really hurt her feelings."

Vincent only nodded. He let Tifa feed him and listened as she and Reeve talked. As evening fell, he excused himself to wait for Yuffie on the porch. He really had not intended to endanger her. In truth, he had thought she was being obnoxious to get a rise out of him as she had sometimes done. Despite the irritation she sometimes caused him, he could not imagine a world where she was not around.

Before the sun had finished setting, he could see her figure moving with purpose towards the bar. Her face did not change expression when she noticed him. Vincent was sure she would have gone straight into the bar without more than a nod in his direction if he had not stopped her.

"Yuffie."

She did not turn to face him, but she did not open the door either.

"I apologize."

"You should." Yuffie said, finally turning to face him again, "That was a low blow. I mean, really, a message through Cloud? Way to make me feel lower than dirt."

"Had you explained the circumstances to me, I would have been more receptive."

Yuffie crossed her arms and leaned back against the door, "I told you what was up."

When he merely arched an eyebrow, her certainty wavered, "Didn't I?"

Another moment of silence passed and Yuffie began to blush, "Oops. Yeah, I guess the early a.m. wake up calls would be annoying if you didn't understand what was going on. Sometimes I get in trouble and need a hand to get myself out of it. Just knowing someone's there helps me out. I don't want you guys to just listen to me breathing... that's super weird... so I try to provide you with thought provoking questions to ponder. Sometimes I have deep, important thoughts at three in the morning."

"One night you called and made chocobo noises until I hung up," Vincent scowled at the memory, "...then you called back and made more chocobo noises."

Yuffie's blush deepened, "I don't see the problem."

"Yuffie..."

"Listen Vince, you don't get it. Sometimes, I need to call someone and make chocobo noises. It just depends on how bad it is." Yuffie threw her arms out in an exaggerated gesture, "Does it really matter if I'm pretending to be an animal or quoting poetry? Why can't it be you sometimes? We're friends aren't we?"

It was something Vincent had really never considered. He thought of the fighters in Avalanche to be teammates, his comrades in arms. When trouble came, they were always there for one another. Of course, Tifa had opened her home to them outside of the world ending, but that seemed normal enough. Trouble seemed to be waiting for the Planet around every corner and it only made sense to have them together when it inevitably started up again. Did that make them friends?

As he looked down into the shining eyes of Yuffie Kisaragi, he realized that she had never questioned their friendship. Regardless of who they were or why they were part of the group, Yuffie immediately had taken them to heart. Vincent was certain that the others felt the same way about each other. Deep down, he realized, so did he.

"Yes, we are."

"Good!" Yuffie grinned widely at him, "So does that mean you'll be my night crew again? I know you're not sleeping that much and any dumb book you're reading can wait until after I'm out of the fire. Please?"

Vincent nodded, "You are welcome to call my phone whenever you have need."

Before she could say something else, the door opened behind her. She tried to catch her balance, but quickly lay sprawled on the ground at Tifa's feet. Tifa gasped and knelt down at Yuffie's side, "I'm sorry! I thought I heard you out here and I was so worried about you earlier-"

"Way to ruin a tender moment between me and Vincent, Boobs." Yuffie said, slowly sitting up, "I think he was even going to let me hug him and junk."

She let Tifa help haul her to her feet and followed her inside. Before the door could swing shut, Yuffie called back, "Come on, Vincent. Since you've been such a jerk, you can at least spend the night hanging out and listening to my thrilling tales of heroics!"

Behind the collar of his cloak, Vincent smiled and dutifully followed Yuffie and Tifa back inside.

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True story, Yuffie calls Tifa "Boobs" if she's the party leader when you first meet Yuffie. Not much else to say here. There's one very short conclusion to follow and then this one is finished! Then it will be back to the story I'm supposed to be working on.


	3. Chapter 3

Conclusion

Reeve insisted that Yuffie take some time off to recover. He felt that the mission that ended in explosions, neither he nor Yuffie would go into more detail about that mission, had been too risky to set her on with only a handful of rookie agents. Vincent could tell that Yuffie did not agree, but she let him coddle her and enjoyed the attention. For several weeks she dutifully stayed in the WRO building. According to Reeve, she filed paperwork, went through exercises with her rookie team, and was just generally Yuffie.

It was not long before she got the itch in her feet again. Reeve sent out a text informing everyone that the intelligence department had all vanished from the building. He had security trying to figure out how they had done it, but Yuffie was on the prowl again. One night soon after, somewhere shortly after midnight, Vincent's phone began to ring. The music was soothing and instrumental, but still different than the plain beeping that usually marked a phone call.

Cautiously he answered the call, "Yuffie?"

"You like it?"

"It is quite nice." Vincent murmured, "Thank you."

"Of course." Yuffie chuckled, "You really need to secure your phone better. At least the others made me work for it to mess with their phones. I plucked yours right off your belt."

Vincent made a noise of agreement, even though he did not mind her games. It would not have mattered where he carried his phone. If Yuffie wanted it, she was going to get it. He heard her grunt and the sound of her feet hitting packed dirt. It was at this point that he realized why she was calling. He waited another moment, unsure of what to say.

"If absolute power corrupts absolutely, does absolute powerlessness make you pure? "

Vincent sat speechless. After the chocobo noises and the questions about cats and bread, he had not imagined such a serious question.

As if she could read his thoughts, Yuffie chuckled on the other side of the call, "I figured that you would prefer an intellectual-type question over my chocobo impression. I did some research during my down time."

There was the sound of some shuffling and what may have been an animals snarl coming from the speaker, "...of course if you'd prefer, I could start squawking for you-"

"No!" Vincent cried. He paused, surprised by the vehemence of his response and then cleared his throat, "I find your question to be excellent. I'm just not sure of how to answer."

"Take your time."

Vincent could hear the teasing in her voice and the barely existent sound of her shoes hitting the ground. If nothing else, she was very light on her feet. He did his best not to analyze the sounds too closely, knowing what she really needed from him was a distraction, "I suppose I would have to disagree."

"Really?"

"Well, as an example, your father has absolute power in Wutai and he did not seem corrupt to me." Vincent set his book aside and leaned back in his chair, "I have also seen corruption in the slums where people were essentially without any power... Aeris had the power of the Cetra and seemed incredibly pure."

"All good points, Vince. It's like power can lead to corruption, but doesn't cause it. Huh." Yuffie grunted and he could hear her begin to run faster, "There must be some other element that causes corruption. Neat."

He waited to see what she would say next, but she stopped running again and there was some quiet clunking noises. She waited silently for a while. Vincent felt himself holding his breath and forced himself to breathe normally. After a moment or two she murmured, "I think I'm all good. I'm gonna lay low for a while and wait for my extraction team. It'll give me time to think on what you said."

Vincent smiled slightly, "I... would be interested to hear your thoughts."

"Really?" Yuffie laughed again, "Well alright. It'll give us something to talk about next time. Nighty night, Vince."

"Good evening, Yuffie."

He chuckled to himself and set his phone aside. He was surprised to realize how mature his young friend had become in the years since they had first met. Then again, the Wutain princess had many faces. Maybe she had always been more mature than she had let on and no one had noticed. Perhaps she did her best to do what was unexpected in an attempt to amuse herself. Chances were that he would never know for certain. There was a small part of himself that enjoyed the mystery of it. He picked up his book and began to read again.

* * *

While looking for a picture of a cat with buttered bread on its back, I came across the best internet page ever. Search "Murphy's Law Application for Antigravitatory Cats" in Google and pick the Uncyclopedia entry. It should be first. My mind is blown.

This marks the end of this story. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. I'm working hard on the next chapters for Do You Want To Talk About It. I should have something post worthy soon. I'll try to post it in the next few days. I've got a rough story arc worked out for the rest of that story, so things should go more smoothly in the future. I hope.


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